


Pick-Me-Up

by AbelQuartz



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Bad Flirting, Developing Friendships, F/M, Flirting, Gen, High School, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Teen Romance, Teenage Drama, Teenagers, connverse - Freeform, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21584887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbelQuartz/pseuds/AbelQuartz
Summary: Well, Connie, have fun explaining to the high school quarterback that you have a magical boyfriend with a cosmic lion coming to pick you up. Can you blame him for not believing you?(Short request from Tumblr!)
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Comments: 33
Kudos: 341





	Pick-Me-Up

Connie wondered for a moment why people were glancing at her. It was the perfect word — a  _ glance _ — because it only took a second for the other students to see who had cornered her. Or maybe that wasn’t fair to Leon. He would let Connie go if she wanted, as he had done dozens of times earlier in the day, and then would find her again like how a wasp would follow someone carrying ice cream. At least a wasp could be swatted.

Leon leaned against the same column as Connie, planting a foot on the brickwork and tugging at his letterman jacket.

“Look, the other guys on the team, they’ve been talking, alright?” the teenager said. “Some of them wanna do the thing where they put you down a little, make you feel bad. Some of them just think you’re all cold. I know you better, Connie! We’re in, like, three classes. It’s been two months! Isn’t that enough?”

Connie had never seen Leon before this year. As a junior at St. Calisto of Grace Preparatory School (Calisto Prep for anyone without the lung capacity), classes were significantly smaller and more specified. It was true that Leon was in three out of seven classes, but they were the core ones that everyone needed to take for graduation. For such a large campus he had been around Connie more than she knew was statistically reasonable.

And it was unfortunate, because besides being as thick in the head as a concrete fruitcake, Leon was an objectively enviable suitor. He was a tall quarterback who wore his school uniform just a little too tight, with Hollywood skin and vacuous ocean eyes that were permanently narrowed from raising a brow in Connie’s direction. His hair followed suit, swooping upwards in front in a dirty blonde wave, just slightly askew. Was he popular? Connie had no idea.

“Are you excited for the long weekend? If you want we can get to know each other even better! There’s this place by the coast with a beautiful lighthouse, and the stars are hella.”

“I — Well, I actually know that place. Beach City?”

Leon’s eyes lit up, as if the single switch in his brain had been flipped on in a shower of sparks.

“Yeah! That’s the one! You been there?”

What was the harm in entertaining him until Steven got here? Connie tugged on her backpack straps and straightened up. It did seem cruel to lie. Teasing would be fun, but lying wasn’t right here.

“Actually, my family lives nearby, and that’s where I go on weekends,” the girl said. “My boyfriend has a house right under the cliff.”

“Dude, that’s so nice that you get to see your family so close.”

“Yep. And my boyfriend.”

Leon snapped his fingers and nodded, playing along asynchronously to a song nobody could hear.

“Your boyfriend go to this school?”

“Well, no — ”

“So like he goes to the one just north of the place by the middle school.”

“Actually, he’s homeschooled.”

“Of course. Yeah, that’s — sure.”

Connie turned away as Leon smoothed his hair up. Students milling around in the parking lot were driving out in shiny new models, cars their parents had bought as school gifts, and parents were coming around to drive away their children to their beach houses on the coast. None of them would be ready for what Steven was going to bring. When she dared look back, Leon actually looked disappointed.

“You know you can tell me if you’re just not interested, right?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Like, you don’t have to feed me these things about a boyfriend,” Leon said. “I know what you’re trying to do, and I mean, I can take it if you say no. Like you don’t have to be polite.”

“Oh. Leon, no, I really mean it, his name is Steven and he’s homeschooled in Beach City.”

“Last name?”

“Um… ‘Universe.’”

Leon sighed with his whole chest. Okay, Connie knew she couldn’t blame that one on Steven, but she was telling the truth no matter how weird it sounded.

“And is he picking you up?”

“Yeah. Yes! He’ll be picking me up soon!”

“What kind of car does mister Universe drive?”

Connie opened her mouth to answer and let the words fade to a hiss behind her teeth. ‘Universe’ could at least be a potentially plausible last name, but telling Leon that Steven would be riding in on a pink lion was too much and they both knew it. The young man looked over to see Connie studying the stones underneath etched with various founding donors.

“Right,” Leon muttered.

“He’ll be coming, I swear.”

“Connie, I know you think I’m stupid.”

“Leon, no, that is  _ not  _ true.”

“Don’t you think I’ve been rejected by enough girls here to figure out what they think of me? Christ, Connie, I got the grades here. I’m not smart like you, but I can figure shit out.”

Could it be possible that she was actually feeling bad? Leon seemed genuinely upset at what he imagined Connie to be thinking, and the girl had to admit that Leon had been half-right. She had pegged him as a buy-in kid, one who had had his way paved for him by rich parents. Maybe that wasn’t true. Being flirtatious didn’t make him immediately dumb. If Steven was a student here, Connie knew that he would be as romantic as he could inside and outside school hours. Judging Leon wansn’t fair.

“Okay. Leon, I’m sorry.”

“That’s...fine and whatever. But you still won’t go out, right?”

“No, I really can’t.”

“If it’s a religious thing, I’ll respect that. Totally. If you want me to go away, like, I’ll do it!”

“I don’t want to just make you feel like I can’t be friends!” Connie said. “We can! Leon, maybe we can get to know each other, but we can’t do it romantically.”

“Because of Steven Universe?”

“I know it sounds made-up, but he’s real and I’m dating him right now.”

Leon looked like he wanted to argue in defense of his thought process, and he opened his mouth right as the air began to glow. He whirled to face the emerging pink spiral, as did all the other students in the lot. The teenager snapped his arm upwards in front of Connie, like he was protecting her from an oncoming tackle. The tiny circle turned into a blazing ring of neon pink, wide enough and tall enough for a certain cat to jump through. Leon and the assembled students looked on in awe at the massive humming circle.

Lion leapt through his portal and slammed into the bricks, skidding to a halt in front of the assembled crowd. Holding on tightly was a laughing, smiling Steven, and he straightened up on his mount as the circle faded and popped out of existence.

While Leon was still agape, Connie took a moment to appreciate just how perfect that timing was. She could tell Steven had just shaved from the little pink lines underneath his chin. His jacket settled around his body, and he was wearing the new sneakers that they had bought together on their last date. It was cold enough for the jacket to be zipped up, but Connie could tell from the hint of black that he had one of his dad’s old sleeveless shirts underneath.

He hopped off Lion and floated down seamlessly in front of the pair. That was one of those other tricks that nobody could believe until they saw it, and Connie could tell from a single peek that Leon was still not quite sure what was going on. The girl skipped forwards and hugged Steven before he could even open his mouth. 

“Oh—! Hey, Connie! It’s good to see you too.”

“Thanks for picking me up, Steven!”

“Heh, my pleasure.”

She could feel his chin lift to look over at Leon. When she opened her eyes, she saw Lion and Leon staring each other down. She turned, keeping one arm wrapped around Steven’s arm, and cleared her throat.

But the flirt was clearly disappointed. Calling him a ‘flirt’ probably wasn’t even that accurate, and Connie started to feel bad about all the annoyance earlier. He wasn’t angry or insulting or belligerent right now. He tried his best to straighten up and act like he hadn’t just been talking about Steven like he was a lie. Connie had half-imagined Leon to challenge Steven’s manliness or romantic intent — but Leon didn’t say anything at all.

“Steven,” Connie said, “this is my friend, Leon. We have a few classes together.”

“Cool! Hi, Leon. I’m Steven. Steven Universe.”

Steven extended a hand. Leon took a second, but he did his best to smile, and he clapped his hand into Steven’s own.

“Nice ride, man! Leon Turner, rising star. You got a cool name.”

“Right back atcha!”

There, Connie saw just what she wanted to see. That one word, friend, had been enough. No more lies and no more put-downs. She wasn’t ready to see Leon as anything close to a friend, but the word was enough to put things in motion. As the football player shook hands with her boyfriend, Connie knew he was begrudgingly accepting that she hadn’t been lying, that she had been telling him all those things as an equal. If she had started on the magic and the Gems and the swordfighting, well, Connie had to admit that nobody could be blamed for calling her a liar. Leon knew better now. Maybe he had always known better.

“Connie was just telling me that you guys were going over to your place for the weekend,” Leon said.

“Hopefully we’ll have a moment to relax before homework, right?”

“Ha, you know it, man. You guys better get going, though — weekend’s not gonna last forever.”

“Ready, Connie?”

As she climbed onto the beast’s back, Lion grunted through his teeth, but he didn’t snap at Leon any farther. The tall teenager backed off as Steven jumped up as well between Connie and Lion’s mane. She held onto Steven’s waist and looked at Leon one more time before they headed off. Just like how all his other smiles had been, Leon grinned genuinely, and gave her a thumbs up.

“See you on Monday, Leon.”

He merely saluted, then leaned back on the bricks. In her head, Connie thought of study groups she could invite him to, events that the three of them could join together. Maybe he could watch her fence, with Steven and Pearl there to encourage her during practice. Connie wondered what making friends had been like before all of this, if she could even have begun without the confidence Steven and the Gems had given her.

But Leon didn’t know that Connie — he knew her as she was now, and he had wanted to be with her as she was now. Still, better a friend than a new adversary. Anyone who wanted to compete with Steven deserved some kind of medal for obtuse bravery before being left in the dust; Leon was smarter than that. Connie gave one last salute back before Lion bounded forward, and once more, her world was pink.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking occasional requests over on Tumblr: abel-quartz.tumblr.com. All my new work is posted there first!


End file.
